Arrival: 2011 Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon

Hello, Darkness -- My New Friend

"Is it weird that THIS is my new daily driver obsession? I'm suddenly really into wagons. Having a baby mutated my car guy DNA," wrote my friend Dan on Facebook below a photo of an Audi S4 Avant he's recently started lusting after. He loves speed and performance and all that good stuff, but now there's a kid in the picture, so he needs practicality to boot. I responded, "Real car guys love wagons above all else." I didn't have the heart to tell him that compared to the mine-for-a-year Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon, the little five-door Audi is a tricycle.

That's right, here at Motor Trend we've rejiggered our method for evaluating our long-term fleet. Instead of reporting what essentially amounts to a never-ending series of first impressions, staffers get assigned a single car for up to one full year. It's that editor's responsibility to do all the reporting on said vehicle, from what it's like initially all the way down to warranty repairs. We become their virtual owners, and they become our actual responsibility. Obviously, I once made a very smart deal with the devil, because I was put in charge of the black beast you see here. I guess I can't claim I've never won anything.

So how is the 556-hp Caddy Wagon to live with? The days go by and the song remains the same, except for one thing: I love the Cadillac CTS-V Sport Wagon more and more with each passing dawn. And dusk. And noontime ride to lunch. And commute home. And 1000-mile road trip. And when I'm walking up to it in a parking lot. And when I see a valet pull it up to the curb. And when I just sit inside and fondle (that's the word I'm choosing) the faux-Alcantara shift knob topped off by a well-wrought metal H-pattern medallion.

Rarely has a car exuded such character, with so much desideratum dripping from its pores. This monster of a machine is the automotive equivalent of Samuel Jackson's wallet. From the black graphite wheels with yellow calipers to the sharky chrome grille to the sparkly Black Diamond paint, the dark Caddy wagon looks the business. The murder business. Of course, that V badge backs up all the talk. With a war hammer.

Under the intimidating hood resides a mildly detuned version of the Corvette ZR1's supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 (LSA) that makes a raucous 556 horsepower and a riotous 551 lb-ft of torque. Man, just typing out those numbers out feels good. This V-Wagon also gets the six-speed manual transmission instead of the much-less-good six-speed automatic. Lest you fall for Cadillac's marketing tricks, John Heinricy set the sub-8-minute Nurburgring lap time in an automatic V sedan only because that's the car that was on hand. Trust me, I'm "friends" with the "Hein Rocket" on Facebook. Point is, I've driven both, and a slushbox Caddy V is right up there with non-alcoholic beer. Do. Not. Want. Fine, it's not that bad, but you'll want the shift-it-yourself version worse than Ron Paul wants the gold standard.

Flaws? The gas mileage is pretty rotten. We're talking 15.5 miles per gallon. Worse, the fuel tank is freakishly undersized at 18 gallons. The talk of adding a fuel cell is a weekly happening. With my ticket-prone feet stomping the return springs out of the clutch and accelerator, I'm averaging about 160 to 180 miles per tank. Which means I stop for gas almost constantly. But here's the thing: All this environmental terrorism's not my fault - the supercharged V-8 made me do it.

On the road, this nearly murdered-out V-Wagon is about as inconspicuous as William and Kate having a three-way with Lindsay Lohan in the TMZ cafeteria. Cops are kind of a problem, though knock on the wood trim, only one ticket so far. And after our tank-slapper-happy executive editor Ed Loh decided to play drift king for our camera crew, a new set of Michelin Pilot Sport 2 tires dinged my corporate card to the tune of $2020. But other than that? As Curt Hennig would say, "Perfect."

The thing people don't get about these big V8's is that you can burn almost as much gas as you want if you can't keep your foot out of it. Or, if you baby it, you can do pretty decent on mileage by keeping the RPM's real low.

aura was rated at 17 city so its mileage was mediocre at best. I routinely got around 15mpg in city driving. Even so I exceeded 200m per tank all the time and the tank was only 16.3 gallons. There is no way this CTS-V should be getting only 160m per tank- it doesnt add up. I agree the tank should be about 20 gallons but even with this tank 200-230m per tank should be easily achievable.

I wonder if a (505 horsepower) LS7 equipped CTS-V might not do a little better at the pump? I am sure its' long term repair and maintenance costs would be lower. Bottom line >16 mpg sucks, no matter how fast it is!!

Still no explanation of the range figures? How are you getting only 160m per tank @ 15.5mpg? You should be well over 200m per tank even with that mileage. I used to get 15mpg in my Aura with a 16.5 gallon tank and manage at least 220m per tank.

If I actually saw one of these on the road I'd believe they are real, but I don't and so this article is BS about a car that doesn't exist. Since it's an imaginary car why is it so ugly? Since we're pretending Cadillac makes cars people buy why not also pretend it's an attractive car and get's reasonable mileage. After all a Mustang GT500 manages 23 mpg's, why can't this thing manage 20?.

"a slushbox Caddy V is right up there with non-alcoholic beer"Jonny Lieberman, if a supercharged V8 wagon isn't fun to you just because it has an automatic, you must be a pretty boring person to begin with.

I sure wish my dad were alive to see this car. He loved the old large Cadillacs that were spacious and comfortable. But he still would love these smaller Caddys because he always yearned for power, which the old Caddys seemed to lack. He never had the money for a real sporty luxurious car...this would have filled the bill for him.

"...this nearly murdered-out V-Wagon is about as inconspicuous as William and Kate having a three-way with Lindsay Lohan in the TMZ cafeteria.". Best. Line. Ever. BravA!Great looking vehicle. Saw one last night and, from directly behind, the tail light look a little thick/wide. But they are tail lights I'd be happy to see! Caddy did an out standing job on this car. Is it perfect? No. Is any car? No. So let's just celebrate the best Caddy line you can buy currently built and hope & pray GM doesn't jack it up with the redesign (or if they do, at least they get the ATS right!)!

Cool super horsepower and torque, nice bringing back the wagon, but their one problem I have and that is, no that much people are going to buy a super sport wagon because of it's high prices like $60,000+, while with that money I would buy BMW M3 even that it has lower HP than the CTS-V , but still more people would buy an M3 because of it's reliability and if people seen a M3 they wil say,"cool!".But stiil, I like where Cadi is going.

Another great example that MT drivers sux! I know that altitude, different tracks, drivers, temperature etc can affect a car's ability but this is considerbly slower than the C&D stats on the CTS-V Wagon. They achieved 12.3 in the 1/4 mile which is only 2/10 quicker BUT C&D got 119 mph. I suggest MT send their drivers back to ah.... driving school. Yea I know the auto tends to be a tad quicker than the manual but again.... 4 mph less in the 1/4 mile - NOT!

even with that size tank you must be filling up with 1/4 tank left to average 160m per tank. Assuming you put in 16 gallons per fillup you should be getting 248m per tank at 15.5mpg. Why would you keep getting gas with 3-4 gallons left in the tank each time in a gas guzzler like this? as for the auto being the one you should stay away from- I'm sure the majority of V models sold are automatics and if you deal with heavy traffic I'm sure its a smart choice. The auto is faster than the manual as well so it cant be all bad.

I don't like the baby excuse for getting station wagons, since a sedan will do fine, but this car requires no excuse at all. Excellent color choice, and I'm extremely glad to see that you got the correct transmission.